Milano-Tokyo Dialogue over HikikomoriRound 8 ”Why One Becomes a Hikikomori”

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◆ Marco Crepaldi
A young socio-psychologist in Milan, Italy. Founded the web site “Hikikomori Italia” to respond to the increase of hikikomori in Italy, presiding liaison meetings of about 170 families. Refer to his article “What hikikomori is and what Isn’t” which was translated also in Japanese and raised big reactions.

◆ Vosot Ikeida
A middle-aged hikikomori in Tokyo, Japan. Has been a hikikomori intermittently for over 30 years. Refer to his career “Hikikomori Horoki (Odyssey of Hikikomori)“(Japanese). Founded “VOSOT Project”. What he speaks out here is his personal opinion and nothing to represent the Hikikomori News.

Marco:
As I wrote on my website (Hikikomori Italia), I am thinking of the definition of hikikomori as follows;

Hikikomori is a coping strategy activated in response to the excessive pressure of social realization typical of modern individualistic societies.

We can work together for a shared definition of hikikomori. This could be the first one to start from. Please tell me your personal ideas of it.

Vosot:
Your idea of the definition is really well thought out. I haven’t got any good alternative one for the moment.
However, I wonder how I can apply your idea of definition to my own personal case of becoming a hikikomori.

Marco:
Your life story (in Japanese) makes me think deeply, because I have not yet figured out how much family – and educational style in general – affects a hikikomori.

As I said previously, I’m in touch with several hikikomori parents, and they are struggling so much with the condition of their son or daughter. They are blaming themselves a lot and they are full of love, comprehension, and patience, towards their children. So it is difficult for me to understand how much their educational style is wrong or right.

Vosot:
That would be hard to tell how much their educational attitude is wrong or right. When I was a child, it was mostly justified once you called it “shitsuke (discipline)”, however violent and abusive the educational style of parents might be.

Marco:
However, as you said, hikikomori is not black or white, but it’s a spectrum. There could be many different types of hikikomori, with different stories and different reasons behind their hikikomori lives.

Vosot:
It is such a good saying “Hikikomori is not black and white, but a spectrum”. It is most unproductive in our hikikomori community that we make the definition of hikikomori so obsessively that we start to deny each other, saying “You are not a hikikomori” “No, it is you who are not a hikikomori”. A hikikomori is regarded to be a non-productive existence socially. So if we start such an unproductive argument, it will be endlessly negative.

Marco:
We have to be aware of the diversity of hikikomori, but at the same time, I believe there is a common factor that unites all the hikikomoris, from all over the world. And I’m convinced that we have to search it in the modern society dynamics.

Vosot:
Wow, how exciting.

Marco:
So, what is the main difference between our modern society and the previous ones?
Maybe competition, need for achievement, and as a consequence, pressure, a lot of pressure.
Maybe hikikomori is a “collateral effect” of this pressure, though it’s only a hypothesis.

Vosot:
What you say is very convincing.

When I was a child, Japan was in the period of very high economic growth. The competition was supposed to be severer in a way.

I myself didn’t want to compete so much, but my mother who deprives my entity liked to compete and wanted me to compete, instead of herself.

Even if I had become a socially competitive man after all, I wanted to be one by my choice and I didn’t and don’t want to be one by the choice of someone else.

Marco:
Hmm…

Vosot:
I don’t think that only the society dynamics elucidate the common factor that unites all the hikikomoris in the world. But also relationships between mother and child would affect the creation of hikikomori. I think we should spotlight not only on society dynamics but also family dynamics more.

Marco:
When you mention “society” and “family” like that, what would you think of a small society such like a local community or village?

Vosot:
Oh, that’s a good question. In that case, I would like to regard the local community such like a small village, as a kind of expanded “family”, rather than “society” which sounds to be something more general, because the village would have a kind of closed nature which pushes him or her to become a hikikomori. “Gemeinschaft” in German. There are a lot of people who were abused by their local society and ended up becoming hikikomoris, despite they had good relations with their own family.

Marco:
On the other hand, the family and the society dynamics cannot be detached completely, can they?

Vosot:
Of course, not. Because the family is living in the middle of huge social dynamics of the period they live in. In the end, what I’d like to say is that it would be too much if we attributed everything to the society. It is fine to talk about the society which produces hikikomoris, but it is not fine if we do so in order to escape from talking about the family which produces a hikikomori.

Marco:
You mean we should avoid from mistaking purposes for methods.

Vosot:
That’s right. There are many people who never become hikikomoris, even though they are grown up in the same society, in the same period, in the same town. It is just my impression as one of the hikikomoris, but the mother-child relationships of the people who don’t produce hikikomori are usually healthy.

Marco:
You are insisting that a mother-child relationship is so important.

Vosot:
Correct. When I was younger, I didn’t want to think about my “mother” problem, so I was trying to find the reason somewhere outside, in the society, to explain why I am like me. However, getting aged, it is no longer a taboo inside me to think of the “mother” problem. Then, I started to realize that the “mother” problem is so crucial to find out why I am like me, a hikkikomori for over 30 years.

Marco:
That is interesting.

Vosot:
I have no intention to simplify it like “If you have a bad relationship with mother, you’ll become a hikikomori”. I know there are a lot of hikikomoris whose mother-child relationships are so good… so good that they cannot be detached.

A mother is the first “other” for a child to meet in this world.
For a child, the relationship with the mother would become the prototype for the numberless other relationships that the child is going to have in the future for life.

A hikikomori usually has few social relationships. There are some outlookingly “gregarious” hikikomoris, but they have only a few friends whom they open their hearts towards. I imagine this way of making few relationships might be originated somehow from the first prototypical one between mother and child, whether their mother-child relationship superficially looks good or bad.

Marco:
Well, we have been talking deeply over 8 rounds, but shall we finish it here for the moment?

Vosot:
Yes, let’s. We may start it again in the near future, because we have too many topics around hikikomori. Thank you very much for your discussing with me. It was very interesting.